ACBJ looks to diversify its revenue with services

American City Business Journals, which operates 43 business newspapers online and in print, wants services to provide one-third of its revenue by 2023, reports Max Willens of Digiday.

Willens writes, “To diversify its revenue sources, The Business Journals has turned over 40 percent of its 40-person product staff to emphasize products outside its core publications. It’s also trying to get more direct connections with its audience.

“To keep abreast of what its audience wants, The Business Journals hired a new head of research and established a 30,000-person panel, the Business Journals Business Advisors Program, which it polls monthly, on topics like how they educate themselves in their fields and how they hire and retain talent.

“Deciding to think of itself less as a media company and more as a business that helps serve its existing audience’s needs ‘opened a door,’ said Jonathan Shaw, The Business Journals’ head of product. ‘The focus is trying to serve the customer, rather than: ‘We need to redo the article pages because everybody else is doing that,’’ Shaw said.”

Chris Roush is the Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

This website is operated by Chris Roush, who teaches “Writing and Reporting,” “Business Reporting,” “Economics Reporting,” and “Business and the Media” at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.